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Environmental Law At Maryland, No. 25, Winter-Spring 2008

Environmental Law at Maryland

No abstract provided.

Legal Advocacy And Education Reform: Litigating School Exclusion, Dean Rivkin

Scholarly Works

School exclusion has existed as a dark side of public education since the creation of America's public schools. Several cases in the United States Supreme Court memorably invalidated State and school system efforts to deny equal educational opportunities to marginalized school children and youth. In these cases, the over-riding multiple values of education were poignantly articulated in the majority decisions.

School exclusion has stubbornly persisted. It takes many forms. This article surveys the most prominent pathways to school exclusion, highlighting what has been called the "School-To-Prison-Pipeline." Various legal challenges are also evaluated. The pros and cons of litigating school exclusion …

Ossification’S Demise? An Empirical Analysis Of Epa Rulemaking From 2001-2005,, Stephen M. Johnson

Articles

For more than a decade, academics have suggested agencies are increasingly avoiding notice and comment rulemaking because the process has become “ossified” by procedures imposed by Congress, courts and the Executive Branch, and because the rules ultimately issued by agencies are frequently challenged. This article reviews the rules the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued between 2001 and 2005 to determine the validity of those criticisms. With regard to judicial challenges, 75% of EPA’s most important (“economically significant”) rules issued between 2001 and 2005 were challenged in court. This is consistent with the anecdotal claims of former EPA Administrators …

Educating Workers About Labor Rights And Global Wrongs Through Documentary Film, Fran Ansley

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Law Clinics And Collective Mobilization, Sameer Ashar

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Communities And Water Markets: A Review Of The Model Water Transfer Act, Santos Gomez, Penn Loh

UC Law Environmental Journal

No abstract provided.

Growth Management And Western Water Law: From Urban Oases To Archipelagos, A. Dan Tarlock, Sarah B. Van De Wetering

UC Law Environmental Journal

No abstract provided.

Foreword Latcrit Xii - The Critical Locality And The Processes Of Community, Charles R.P. Pouncy

St. Thomas Law Review

The foreword to each annual LatCrit Conference Symposium is a document that generally attempts to situate the current Symposium within the parameters of LatCrit and outsider jurisprudence discourse. In addition to examining the role that the current Symposium plays in the elaboration of LatCrit theory and praxis, part of the task of the foreword calls for reflection on the evolution of the LatCrit project and its future development. This foreword will examine the relationship of the Symposium contributions to the themes of LatCrit XII and to the perennial issues that LatCrit conferences and theory attempt to engage. This foreword, however, …

Evaluating The Chicago Brownfields Initiative: The Effects Of City-Initiated Brownfield Redevelopment On Surrounding Communities, Jessica Higgins

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

This article examines the Chicago Brownfields Initiative and its effect on the communities in which brownfield redevelopment has already occurred. After examining the many federal, state, and local brownfields programs, it critically examines both the successes and concerns of the Chicago Brownfields Initiative. The successes include job creation and retention, residential redevelopment, improvements to quality of life, services and amenities provided, encouragement of additional investment, increased tax revenues for local governments, and increased environmental health and safety. The concerns include whether the jobs generated benefit the members of the brownfield communities, whether the new services and improvements benefit members of …

The Preferential Option For The Poor: An Opportunity And A Challenge For Environmental Decision Making, Lucia A. Silecchia

Scholarly Articles

The doctrine of 'the preferential option for the poor' has deep roots in Catholic social thought. It proposes that the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable be given priority when creating and evaluating public policies, actions, and attitudes. More recently, the obligation to care for natural environment in an ethical way has been gaining more attention both in the secular world as well as among Catholic scholars who seek to explore the scope of human responsibility for the created world. This paper explores the intersection of the preferential option for the poor and environmental ethics. After a general discussion …

Why We Do The Things We Do? The Role Of Ethics In Water Resource Planning, Amy Hardberger

Faculty Articles

Water provides a natural framework in the role of ethics because ethical issues are present in every facet of water management. The value of water and the creation of ethics dictate decisions regarding water resource management. Value can be assessed from factors including happiness, well-being, or intrinsic value. Once a value is assessed, obligations that dictate actions regarding this issue are generated, and an ethic is created.

Various domestic and international policies have, both explicitly and implicitly, called for a human right to water. The presence of domestic and international policies that recognize or protect a person’s right to water …

The Blood Of Going Green: Using Environmental Initiatives To Account For The Human Rights Violations Of The Green Movement, Noushin Ketabi

Fordham International Law Journal

Part I of this Note first illustrates the science of climate change and the push for biofuel development. Next, this Note uses human rights to define the problems associated with biofuel development in Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay, and introduces the environmental law framework that can address these human rights violation. Part II details the main human rights violations in Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay occurring at the hands of the soy industry, and surveys the main existing certification proposals that attempt to mitigate social and environmental abuses. Finally, Part III proposes ways that developed countries can collectively mitigate the negative human …

John E. Thorson, Sarah Britton, And Bonnie G. Colby Eds., Tribal Water Rights: Essays In Contemporary Law, Policy, And Economics, Kate William-Shuck

Water Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Mysteriously Reappearing Cause Of Action: The Court’S Expanded Concept Of Intentional Gender And Race Discrimination In Federally Funded Programs, Derek W. Black

Faculty Publications

This Article addresses whether a cause of action exists under federal statutes to challenge gender and racial inequity in federally funded programs. The question has widespread ramifications because Congress appropriates funds to millions of programs that are subject to these statutes. The Court has held that the only cause of action that exists under these statutes is for intentional discrimination, but in a series of recent cases the Court has developed a framework that broadens the concept of intentional discrimination. Unfortunately, lower courts have focused on older and narrower interpretations of intentional discrimination without accounting for the more complex nuances …

Pareto Negativity: The Enemy Of My Enemy Is Not Necessarily My Friend - Latin Leadership, Coalition Building, And Predatory Globalization, Becky L. Jacobs

St. Thomas Law Review

This Essay is based on my presentation at the LatCrit VII conference, which was part of a panel discussion on Coalition Building, Globally and Locally. The purpose of the presentation and of this Essay is to reflect upon the significant role of Latin civil society organizations ("CSOs"), not only in that region's political, social and economic development of other regions, but also in the historical trajectory of the U.S. As I prepared my remarks and noted the achievements of Latin CSOs, I began to question why there are so few Latino and Latina leaders in transnational CSOs and in the …

Fighting Back Against A Power Plant: Some Lessons From The Legal And Organizing Efforts Of The Bayview-Hunters Point Community, Clifford Rechtschaffen

UC Law Environmental Journal

No abstract provided.

Environmental Justice And The Three Great Myths Of White Americana, Luke W. Cole

UC Law Environmental Journal

No abstract provided.

Litigation's Bounded Effectiveness And The Real Public Trust Doctrine: The Aftermath Of The Mono Lake Case, Craig Anthony Arnold, Leigh A. Jewel

UC Law Environmental Journal

No abstract provided.

The Us Social Forum: Building From The Bottom Up, Guerrero

Societies Without Borders

The article deals with the 2007 U.S. Social Forum (USSF). It particularly looks at the historical significance of the USSF. It argues that the USSF signified a turning point in both the emerging social movements within the U.S. and perhaps the global social forum process as well. It then discusses the salient characteristics of the USSF. It also traces how the USSF was organized by a sector of grassroots organizations largely overlooked in national politics.

Caution Ahead: Changing Laws To Accommodate Public-Private Partnerships In Transportation , Ellen M. Erhardt

Valparaiso University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Panel: Ethics-Based Decision-Making In Societal Water Management, Amy Hardberger

Faculty Articles

There is an ethical overlay to water-related decision-making and management, frequently drawing on personal experiences with water and the ubiquitous need for water. The modern South African Bill of Rights, ensuring its people’s access to water; the movement towards recognizing water as a basic human right; and even occurrences in Texas, including the passage of “environmental flows legislation” and the efforts to preserve and protect the Edwards Aquifer, reflect the presence of ethics in decision-making with respect to water management. Ethics are a part of water management decision-making.

Political Externalities, Federalism, And A Proposal For An Interstate Environmental Impact Assessment Policy, Noah D. Hall

Law Faculty Research Publications

Interstate environmental harms, which occur when decisions or actions in one state produce negative environmental impacts in another state, have challenged environmental law and American federalism for over a century. While even the strongest advocates of state primacy in environmental policy concede that interstate environmental harms necessitate federal governance, federal adjudication and regulation have had only modest success in addressing the problem. This is due, in part, to a failure to fully understand the causes of interstate environmental harms. This article provides a newframeworkfor understanding interstate environmental harms as political externalities caused by a combination of inadequate information, public process …

The Necessity Of Economics: The Preferential Option For The Poor, Markets, And Environmental Law, Andrew P. Morriss

Faculty Scholarship

Markets and economic theory are often cast as the enemies of both the poor and environmental quality. This paper, part of the Peace with Creation symposium held at the St. Thomas School of Law in Minneapolis, argues that economics provides a necessary, but not sufficient, tool to address the problems of the poor and of improving environmental quality. The paper discusses ten propositions of economic theory and explains how each applying them results in both improvements in environmental quality and in the lot of the poor. The paper then briefly examines three examples of how applying the lessons of economics …

Survey Of Seqra Cases From 2007, Michael B. Gerrard

Faculty Scholarship

The courts issued 58 decisions under the New York State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) in 2007.

Typically, plaintiffs have a much greater chance of success in SEQRA cases when no environmental impact statement (EIS) has been prepared: on average, in the cases from 1990 (when this column’s annual survey began) through 2006, plaintiffs won 15.9 percent of the cases where there is an EIS, and 38.6 percent of the cases without an EIS.

But in 2007 the ratio was much different. In the 22 cases with an EIS, plaintiffs won seven, or 31.8 percent. In the 27 cases without …

Squatters, Pirates, And Entrepreneurs: Is Informality The Solution To The Urban Housing Crisis?, Carmen Gonzalez

Faculty Articles

Giving the poor legal title to the lands they occupy extra-legally (informally) has been widely promoted by the World Bank and by best-selling author Hernando de Soto as a means of addressing both poverty and the scarcity of affordable housing in the urban centers of the global South. Using Bogota, Colombia, as a case study, this article interrogates de Soto's claims about the causes of informality and the benefits of formal title. The article concludes that de Soto's analysis is problematic in three distinct respects. First, de Soto exaggerates the benefits of formal title and fails to consider its risks. …

Cox, Halprin, And Discriminatory Municipal Services Under The Fair Housing Act, Robert G. Schwemm

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This Article deals with Cox v. City of Dallas, Halprin v. Prairie Single Family Homes of Dearborn Park Ass’n, and the issue of whether the Federal Fair Housing Act (FHA) should be interpreted to outlaw discrimination in the provision of services by local governments. Part I describes the Cox litigation and its connection with Halprin. Part II surveys the pre-Cox cases that have dealt with discriminatory municipal services. Part III analyzes the FHA's relevant provisions and their legislative history and concludes that Cox and Halprin were wrong to deny FHA protection to current residents. Part IV …

Framework For The Next Civil Rights Act: What Tort Concepts Reveal About Goals, Results, And Standards, Derek W. Black

Faculty Publications

This article anticipates that the next president and the current Congress will likely pursue civil rights legislation for the first time since 1991. Their most significant and difficult task will be determining whether to retain the Supreme Court’s intentional discrimination standard. Because this issue has so often led to polemic debates and court decisions in the past, this article attempts to provide a neutral framework for that discussion. Relying on tort concepts and their longstanding connection to constitutional torts, it demonstrates that the attempt to create a standard to prohibit immoral or “wrongful” conduct is both misguided and will prove …

"Everybody Loves Trees": Policing American Cities Through Street Trees, Irus Braverman

Journal Articles

Recently, municipalities have been investing large sums of money as well as much bureaucratic and professional effort into making their cities not only a more "treefull" place, but also a place that surveys, measures, regulates, and manages its trees. This article explores the transformation of the utilitarian discourse on trees, which focuses on the benefits of trees and greenery, into a normative discourse whereby trees are not only considered good but are also represented as if they are or should be loved by everybody. This transformation is not only the result of top-down governmental policies. It is also a consequence …

Jack L. August, Jr., Dividing Western Waters: Mark Wilmer And Arizona V. California, Risa Borowick

Water Law Review

No abstract provided.

Livability, Regional Equity, And Capability: Closing In On Sustainable Land Use, Nancy D. Perkins

University of Baltimore Law Review

No abstract provided.